


(Gratuitous hurt Daryl fic)

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Basically Daryl is hurt/sick, Daryl and Carol friendship - Freeform, Domestic apocalypse family, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt Daryl Dixon, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Softness, Whump, collapse, people look after him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:16:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Daryl is hurt or sick.People look after him.An ode to Daryl Dixon hurt/comfort1. Season 2, Daryl passes out and worries everyone2. Season 7 Daryl has a bad fever nightmare. Maggie's there for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set mid season two more or less, so farm.

Shane had just basically told him to shut up and it was the fucking last straw. That man had done nothing but patronize him and antoagonise him the whole time they'd known each other, and Daryl had had enough of it. Shane seemed to respec the rest of them, he respected Rick, he respected Dale, but him... Just a redneck, good hunter and tracker, but useless beyond that. His ideas held no value, his words dismissed.

Shane made him him stupid, which maybe he was, but who did that damn cop think he was to treat him like shit? Where was the decency, for fuck's sake? And so no, Daryl wasn't going to fucking shut up much less because this guy had told him to, and he went straight to him, unhinged, ready to tear him up completely, show him what a useless redneck like him could do...

Even if the world was kind of blurry, and odd – and it felt like everything was spinning around him, at the same time getting further and closer... He'd felt like this before, and the anger always won. If he had to show this guy... the... what.... 

There were arms around him, stopping him from going any further. And the world was.... It kept spinning and Daryl could feel his limbs losing, his knees giving up... But no... He wouldn't let them, he was no weakling... He was a real man, and he would show... could show... Wouldn't let... his eyes close...

*

Rick and Glenn had been holding Daryl back to prevent world war three in the group (again) when Daryl... started fighting them back less. Which had to be a first time, because he wasn't a man that calmed down easily, much less in this occasion when Shane had been... Well, rude. Sure, Daryl wasn't the most educated and social of people and he wasn't exactly great at being a social person in a group, but he had helped them a lot with his tracking skills and he was considerably less douchey than Merle, despite having (presumbaly) the same upbringing. 

So yeah, Daryl was... unpolished. Had quite the fast fuse. But that didn't mean he didn't have a good mind for surviving, or that he didn't play well with others. Sure, he still fought with everyone, but Rick knew that if you got Daryl to watch your back you could really count on him. Whatever his flaws, he was a man of his words and the opposite of a whiner. 

Which, although nice (who wants to hear constant complaints in the middle of the apocalypse?) could prove to be... concerning. Because you never really knew how Daryl was, and he didn't seem to care much himself about it. But others did. They cared. 

They hadn't, in the beginning, none of them. He was rash, he was rude and bad mouthed, he lashed out and seemed to have no redeeming qualities – and he'd been in the shadow of an even worse person. So yeah, they had tolerated him, but they didn't care about him all that much, felt no... attachment. But things had slowly changed. 

Daryl wasn't an easy guy to get a conversation with, but once you did, he could be surprisingly nice. He had a habit of attacking before he was attacked and expecting to be offended, but a little compliment, a bit of trust... You could see that he was a nice guy, trying to better, under all that aloofness. 

Rick hadn't known that this guy would help out so much, that he would so central to everything they did. Daryl was.... Hell, they knew very little about him, they never asked how he was, where he was from, what did he do before the apocalypse, had they? Or they hadn't cared enough to remember the answer. The thing was, Daryl asked for very little and they had got used to him being there to hunt and help and get angry and kind of forgot there were others aspects of his personality. That there could be something there beyond the rage and survival... So when he started going limp in his and Glenn's hold, they were very surprised. 

But yeah, as he tried to beat Shane up Daryl started to lose energy, lose focus, and suddenly, instead of holding him back, Rick and Glenn were helping him down to ground, as he seemed to have lost the ability to simply stay upright, his knees failing, his limbs falling and then in the floor his eyes closed, and he was suddenly out cold in the ground before even delivering the first punch. 

Very disconcerting. It was usual for Daryl to be murderous, but not.. So still. Unconscious. Daryl got up even when he got very badly hurt. He always got up. But now he was laying, still, on the ground, his head fallen to the side. 

“What's wrong with him?” Carl asked from behind his dad. In all the time they'd known him, even when he'd been injured Daryl had kept, hadn't faltered. This was odd. Unprecedented.

Rick checked for bites, although that seemed quite unlikely. Then he checked for a fever, but there was none – this was good, because they didn't have a lot of meds to fight off infection, but didn't answer their questions. Why had he passed out like this?

Rick sat on the floor and put the archer's head in his lap, softly slapping the cheeks. 

“Daryl? Come on, man. Wake up.”

Glenn looked from behind, concerned. Everyone around them was suddenly very worried. 

“What do you think happened to him?” Dale asked, getting closer. He wasn't the biggest fan of that man, but he didn't want anything bad to happen to him, either. He was important for the way, no matter how much he pretended to be a lone wolf with no bonds to them. Lori shrugged her shoulders. Shane stormed off. 

“Has anyone seen him eat lately?” Carol asked. 

Rick's entire mind went “ooh”. So that's what it was. Daryl spent the whole day outside, hunting, trakcing, going on missions, and then often didn't show up to meals (because he felt he was going to be kicked out for being dirty, because he didn't feel like being with so many people at once... who knew). Not often enough that people would see it as a problem... But yeah. 

Same way that a car can't run without fuel, a person can't run on just anger and determination. Daryl had passed out from low sugar, exhaustion, whatever you wanted to call it. He had passed out from not looking after himself and that could not stand. 

It was high time that man let himself rest, let himself eat properly, just looked after himself for a bit. There were probably a myriad half healed wounds on him from trying to be back on his feet to fast. He never seemed to be too hungry, too sleepy, too hurt. He just kept going. 

Well, now he was going to stop even if the rest had to force him to. 

Rick took him in his arms, careful not to hurt him in a way, and slowly carried him to one of Hershel's bedrooms, laying him gently on the bed. Part of Rick was worried that Daryl wasn't waking up, but another was relieved, because this way he couldn't fight them as they looked after him. 

Because after that, practically everyone was pitching in to help their unconscious friend. 

Gleen got extra pillows and Carol looked for extra pillows. 

Maggie had taken Carl to go and prepare the best dinner possible. 

Andrea and Dale were looing for something boozy and nice, wishing they had asked the guy about his preferences, to do something thoughtful. 

Carol sat by his bed, humming a lullaby as she cleaned his face a bit with a wet rag. He was such a handsome man under all the dirt. But such like with his personality, you had to dig a bit to get to the good part. 

“Is he okay?” Shane said, appearing from the shadows. “I didn't mean to... like, hurt him.”

“He'll probably be fine.” Carol said. “He just needs to rest for a moment.”

Maggie and Glenn came back with the food and their best wishes, and lingered a bit, hoping to see their friend awake. 

But he spent the next three hours out, and when he finally woke up.... 

Daryl felt that something was... different. He was lying, for starters, and not standing, and he was in what seemed to be a really good bed. There were faces looking at him, worried. What had he done now??

“There he is. You had us all concerned.” Rick's familiar voice said. 

“What....?”

“You passed out, probably from not eating. Good to see you awake again. I'm gonna go tell the others that you woke up, so they can stop panicking, Carol...”

“I'll make sure he eats.”

Daryl looked around, not understanding. He still felt a bit faint, and kept wondering if this was some sort of strange fever dream. 

“Do you need help sitting up?” Carol's kind voice said as she got closer, making Daryl flinch a bit. He wasn't all that good with the non-fight kind of touching, especially when he wasn't all there. 

She helped him up, put a couple of the pillows behind his back until he was comfortably sitting in the bed. 

When he'd been hurt before, when he'd passed out, he got scoldings after, maybe even some slapping, for being too week, for not being man enough, for being a whiny little princess who kept trying to get attention. This.... this was new for him. 

He knew that this was what people normally did for sick friends or relatives, but he'd never been on the receiving end of... the concern. And he hadn't thought that any of these guys considered him a friend, anyways. 

“How are you feeling?”

Carol checked for fever again (just in case) and he heart broke a little when Daryl flinched at her aproach. She wondered what kind of upbringing he might have to be this... wary. Unused to affection. 

“ 'm fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Daryl put on a defiant face. Attack before they hit you. 

“Are you mad?”

“Mad? Daryl, no, we're worried. You scared everyone when you collapsed like that. Although, I have to admit, I am a bit angry....”

“Whatchu got to be angry about?”

“Well, Daryl, you are strong, and helpful and I think much smarter than you give yourself credit for... And yet you don't look after yourself at all. You don't eat, you put yourself in danger at every chance... And how much do you really sleep at night?”

Daryl looked away from Carol's kind blue eyes, uncomfortable with the situation. He didn't know how to deal with someone caring quite that much. With someone wanting him to... be good to himself. It sounded all kinds of wrong. Real men didn't....

“Can kill a walker from twenty metres but can't remember to feed himself. You are something else, Daryl.”

Carol smiled, and Daryl smiled back, depite the fog still present in his head and the wirdness of it all. 

“Look, we even got you a tray!”

And there it was, a fancy meal, still warm, all for him.

Lori and Carl peeked from behind the doorframe after knocking. 

“We just wanted to check.” Lori said.

“Are you better now?” Carl asked, with hopeful blue eyes. They'd lost too many people already. And Daryl was cool. 

“Yeah, much better, bud.” 

“That's good to hear.” Lori added, and Carl smiled and waved goodbye.

So with that a quick good night, they left and he was alone with Carol and that dinner. It was delicious and they... fuck, Carol said that they'd made it just for him. Daryl was...well, he wa speechless for a moment. He'd been convinced that they would rather not having in the group – apparently he'd been wrong. 

“I...... Why... why d'you care?”

“Because you're a good man, Daryl, even if it's hard to see sometimes. You're a good man and you're part of our lives... And after everything, you deserve to get your wounds looked at, your plate full and some cozy blankets every once in a while.”

Daryl smiled, and it reached his eyes for once. 

“Now, eat. Your part of us now, Daryl – and if you don't look after yourself, then we will. But as long as I'm around, you'll always have someone to hold you when you fall.”

Funny, Daryl thought, never expected to feel more affection and appreciation in a zombie apocalypse than in regular life. And yet....

“Will you try to look after yourself better? For me?”

Daryl nodded, his eyes shy, and there ws another little smile in Carol's eyes. 

She hadn't meant for him to be so important, and yet.... He was. 

He would always be. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set mid season seven after Daryl gets out of the cell and goes to Hilltop

Someone has said something very funny and they are all laughing. Daryl is laughing along with them, he doesn't know exactly what has been said, but he can't stop laughing. It's been so funny, fuck and they'd had such need for some laughs, for some joy, to finally breathe and forget the horrors that they'd been escaping for so long.

It is good to just laugh, and enjoy a harmless joke with friends.

Because they are all there: Rick, and Michonne, huddling together as they should be; Carol joyfully laughing along with them, some meters behind them is Maggie and Glenn, happy, young, in love, looking like the picture of a good future, the damn picture of hope, of a better tomorrow. And there's Carl and Jesus, that unlikely duo of great hair, and Rosita who is not laughing out loud but smiling, which is something...

It's a sunny day in Alexandria and for a moment everything is absolutely great. They are together, they are safe and the joke was so fun, they won't stop laughing. They have tears in their eyes. And yet...

The image is getting distorted, blurred... As if it was never there in the first place, as it never existed. They are dead, they are all dead and when Daryl looks at his hands he sees that they are covered in blood, red and black, murky and sticking to his arms. His chest, too. All of him, really as if he had bathed himself in blood. He is sure that the blood he's covered in is from them, too. His friends, his brothers and sisters, they are all dead in the most gruesome ways imaginable.

Carol's dead eyes are staring at him, and Maggie's throat has been slit. Daryl takes a step back and finds more blood and more bodies. There's Rick and Michonne together in death too, bled out. And Carl and Judith. Fuck, they were just kids. And he hadn't been there for them... He hadn't been able to save anyone.

There is a lump in his throat and Daryl feels that he's dripping blood, and he feels the dead people's eyes in him. Watching him, telling him in an unmistakable way that this is his fault, that he's done this. It is him, Daryl Dixon who through action or inaction had put all of them there. Fighting when he should have been still. Cowering when he should have attacked. This is on him - people trusted him and he'd got them killed. Good for nothing redneck. Useless ball of anger and violence.

"We could have had that, you know?" A familiar voice says from the shadows. Daryl feels something rising up his throat, choking him, and the voice of the shadow is getting closer and closer... "We could have had that happy day, the jokes, the laughs. We could have been happy, together, alive." There's blood dripping from all of him, and he's coughing it too.

A music starts being heard in the background. A familiar tune that makes his whole body shiver. He can’t go through this again, can’t....

Blood on your hands, blood inside you. Someone else's blood. That blood will always be on you. Always be your fault.

Daryl knows this, knows that because of him... They could have done things better, if he’d been alive, maybe... It is his fault and it burns bright through all of him. He broke the happy picture. Tore it apart and set it aflame.

There’s the faint song in the background, that reminds him of what he’s done, of the pain he’s caused

He steps out of the shadows and the sight hurts him.

"We could have it all." Glenn says. "But you went and got me killed. And sooner or later you'll kill them too."

The song is only getting louder and he can’t breathe anymore. There’s no air, there’s only blood, a mangled face reminding him of what he’s done, of what he took from everyone, the blood that will always be in his hands....

_ _... Right here on Easy street_ _

* 

Maggie can’t sleep, so she’s just going for a walk, trying to focus. There are a lot of thoughts inside her, hope mixed with anger, vengeance, tension, the need for patience... It has been some very stressful months and she often finds it very hard to be calm enough to sleep. So she just walks and takes in the sounds of the night.

There’s a particular sound that catches her attention. Someone seems to have trouble breathing, there’s a pain in those wheezes, in how they are trying to draw air and fail. Someone is grabbing the sheets, someone is having a hell of a time. Worried, Maggie goes towards the sound, and finds the source of it, quite soon.

Daryl is on a tent outside the main building, the zipper open (almost inviting walkers or anyone else who’d like to off him) and he seems to be in the middle of a terrifying nightmare. She sighs (hates to see someone she so cares about in such pain) and gets inside the tent, next to him and tries to wake him up.

But it isn’t working. Daryl is trapped in his own mind and Maggie notes with horror that he’s burning up. He pretends to be fine, but... They all know that whatever happened when he was in that cell left a mark. She gets Jesus and some other boy to help her get Daryl to the doctor’s, and that when the screaming begins. 

He's screaming and seems to be in agony, even while he's been looked after in Dr. Carson's practice. Daryl is hurting in his sleep, screams of agony coming from behind those closed eyes and it’s so terrible. Maggie looks at the doctor with concern in her eyes.

"Fevers as high as this one often create the most vivid nightmares. Not much to do about that, I'm afraid." The doctor explains and Maggie hates it.

The doctor tells Jesus to fetch some things (towels, water...) and Maggie puts her hand on her friend's overheated brow. Daryl has been scarred by what happened to her husband, practically as much as her - she knows how much he blames himself, even if she knows and has told him that Negan is the only responsible party. Who knows what kind of horrors he's lived while he was prisoner, they probably made him relive that night in every terrible way...

"Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"He seems to be battling some sort of infection... Probably just an infected of half healed wound.”

“I tried to get him to see you after he was released...” Jesus’ voice said, appearing from the shadows with the supplies. He really was a sneaky man.

And he too had been worried about Daryl, about him not processing all that had happened, about all the injuries being left untreated but hadn’t managed to convince him to get properly checked.

“Well, he can be very stubborn.” Maggie said. “And was never a big fan of looking after himself properly.”

She’s caressing his face, moving the hair back, hating the pain in his features. Just when she thought she couldn’t hate Negan and his saviours more... The doctor is working on him and Maggie sees scars. Too many scars.

Then there’s a gurgling odd noise, and the doctor helps move Daryl to a side. He vomits for a bit, nobody exactly sure if he woke up or not.

But he looks up.. And recognizes her. And there are fresh tears in his eyes - he can’t bare to see her, because she....

“Daryl? You with us?”

He doesn’t want to be. It hurts to have her even look at him, when he... He tries to get back, but he’s in a bed, and there’s no room.”

“It’s okay, you’re safe, it’s okay. It’s just me and doctor Carson and Jesus. You got nothing to worry about.”

But he does. He always will. It will haunt his days and waking hours, he will have to carry this forever...

There’s a cool cloth on his forehead. Maggie. Maggie is looking at him with worry, with affection. He doesn’t deserve this, the attention, the....

There’s a couple of tears escaping through his eyes and Maggie gently wipes them.

“I think I know what your dream was about. And I... Daryl, I said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s not on you. You are not to blame, I don’t blame you. I never did. He wouldn’t either.”

The world is fucking haze. All Daryl know is that he’s in pain, his head is trying to kill him, he can hardly breathe and that dream has left him more exhausted than running a whole night through the woods.

He wants to accept Maggie’s kind words, her absolution. He wants to believe that he isn’t to blame for what happened, and yet... When he meets her eyes, still fuzzy from fever, he can only make out the sincerity in her.

“You have to forgive yourself before it destroys you, Daryl.”

The world’s on fire. He’s uncomfortable, he’s in pain, his entire body in broken and exhausted and yet, she is making it better, one word at a time.

“It’s not on you, it has never been. And you can’t let it hurt you like this - those people, they... They don’t get you, too. Don’t let them do this to you, Daryl.”

He thinks he’s crying, but he isn’t sure. The world is fuzzy, the world hurts and the images of blood, vivid flashes of his dream...

“I’m gonna stay with you tonight, alright? And every time you have a bad dream I’ll be there to remind you that it’s not real, that we need you, that we want you. I know that it’s impossible to recover from something like that alone.... But you’re not alone. And you need to remember that.”

Daryl is so grateful to have something to distract him from that nightmare... Maybe this is still a dream and maybe Maggie hates him, but he’s quite sure that she’s the real deal. And she’s running her thumb through his cheeks and a single rough word escapes him.

“...Sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Now, try to get some real rest, you have get better.”

He closes his eyes. Maybe this time it will be better. Maybe with time....

“Sweet dreams, Daryl.”

They probably won’t be, but Maggie wishes they are.

Sweet, very sweet. And healing.

**Author's Note:**

> Would you like this to be continued? Accepting prompts as of now :)
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hope you liked! 
> 
> Feedback makes this sad little author's day!! You know you want to comment :)


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